every professional we talk, to they just say, look, i'm nervous about the risk/reward balance in this mark, but i'm going to hang in there until it goes down. >> where else are you going to go? >> is that a reason to buy stocks? >> no. going to put your money back? >> go to cash again. if you're nervous about it. >> i'm not nervous about it. another 5% rise from here. >> from here 5%. >> not a huge move. >> i understand. >> but it's definitely a positive, i think, and we'll start having that narrow trading range again in that area, and then at some point getting towards the summer, if the economy continues to grow, this market is going to move a lot higher from there. i'm a buyer, still a buyer at these lofty levels. >> went through an entire hour without mentioning the "s" word that everybody hates in washington, sequestration, right? >> yes. >> that's coming up march 1st. soon after that a big jobs number coming up, and tomorrow live economic data. >> oh, yeah. >> that could move this market

one way or another. >> as the economic data moves, it doesn't move it long term but short term. if the numbers don't come in where we want and the fed comes out with some statement tomorrow afternoon looking to maybe curtail that buying program. there's a lot of things that come out, but i still think they will be short-term moves. >> the market will ignore the bad news and embrace the good news. how cool is clive davis? >> besides warren buffett the only other legend i would shake hands with on the trading floor. >> and we were all thrilled to do that. his book is called "the soundtrack of my life" out today, and he's ringing the closing bell. that's the first hour of the "closing bell." stay tuned for the very important earnings reports coming out at the top of the hour during the second hour with maria bartiromo. i'll see you tomorrow. and it is 4:00 on wall street. do you know where your money is? hi, everybody.

welcome back to the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo on the floor of the new york stock exchange. this market kicking off the week in the green as the dow and the s&p 500 close at yet another five-year high. the nasdaq closing at a 12-year high. we are now finishing on the upside neither highs of the day, in fact. dow jones industrial average up 53 points on the session and a third of a percent higher. we're about 140 points away from the all-time high on the dow jones industrial average. we'll point out volumes not great. it's unimpressive. we are coming off the long holiday weekend so that's expected. moments away from dell's quarterly numbers but first to the markets and our guests. good to see everybody. thanks very much for joining us. good to see you, david. >> maria, likewise. >> how are you investing right now? do you think we're expecting a pullback or does the market want to go higher? >> still more offense on the field. if we get a pullback it will be

10% and i by the time you recognize it it will be half over so i think you want to continue to liege to the large caps but the u.s. mid-cap stocks up and if the market is up, eight straight weeks that the market has been higher. in my memory that hasn't happened in more than 20 years. >> the question is does it continue? >> i think so because there's still a fair amount of mistrust in stocks from so much of the investing public, and i'm starting to see grudgingly that institutional investors are slowly increasing their stock allocati allocation, recognizing that in most pockets of the bond market it's noust jt going to get it done for their liability. >> michael irish cammy, what do you think? do you want to put more money to work here? >> you do. we've got another 5%, 6% on the upside from here. doesn't mean it's going to be a straight line, but i think there's reasonable news coming out about earnings. the news has actively been good

but it looks like there might be a resolution on that. europe appears to be destabilizing and i don't see why the market doesn't go the up 5%, 6% from here and in particular areas like large cap we although continue to find rotation as people continue to move out of fixed assets into equity and, of course, the old emerging market equities are finally going to start to come back here as we finally see china rebound. >> that's the issue. mike, the economy looks and feels better, but you can't really point to any stunning reverse al that would support the move higher extecept the federal government hasn't created anything that will stop the stalemate. in sequestration comes along

with other signs, for example, that the consumer is flagging and whether the walmart news could be extrapolated or not, that's your risk here. i would also point out that we were here in the past two years at this point of the year. you were basically on the air more in 2011 and 2012, the majority of your upside for the year. i don't think you can expect this kind of inching ahead. up 3% over the last four weeks, feels like 10% if you're betting against the market. sitting there with an upward bias with a little bit every day it's not good work. >> we just want to get to the dell numbers, 40 sent a share versus an estimate of 39 cents. jon fortt with the breakdown of the quarter and then back to the broader markets. >> reporter: maria, first thing i want to point out is dell says they are not giving guidance because of the transaction that they are trying to get done and take the company private.

let's look at the numbers, their 14.3 billion. eps slight beat. large enterprise came in -- there's margins, a little bit better -- that number was $4.7 million. the consumer particularly we can in my eyes and margins very slim. 8 million of operating income. america is down 10%. asia-pacific, which had been a bright spot a year ago, that is down 9% so down less than the others, but all of these are -- are down, and the public sector continued to be a point that hurt dell, though perhaps not as much as some people expected. maria? >> thanks, john. >> reaction to the numbers. brian, god to have you on the

program. >> well, as far as well is concerned i'm not seeing what the upside would be except getting into it, trading at might times earnings, blue it's in a rhetttive market. it the feels a lot like microsoft did about ten years in my area that i love. a lot of people own that and it just kind of sagnated, it was making lots of progress but i think dell is in that situation. >> is it worth buying in that company now on the healings know it's about doing private. >> most of the upside was captured in the last two months. seen the stock go up 30% and the reason i thought it was undervalued at that point based on earnings and projected earnings and growth of earnings. those important measures relative to share price, but

going forward most of the gains have been taken out. in fact, the current price of it is above what the private involvementors are ilg offer so i tonight see what has to then all of the can out of the stock? you think the deal happens? >> i think it will. if we look back again, shares were made thing dfsh the announcement mate them go up quite a bit, and i think that's a fair deal for everybody, and it will work out in the big best but i don't see where the upsite is. we'll receive it there. david with morning.

how would you character the deal with dell so far? are you looking at growth? >> i'd give it a solid "b." maybe a b-plus. revenue is better than expected and cash flow expending. ebitda expanding. when you rub that all in, the americans with -- >> one of the issues i've been having with the quarterly numbers is the revenue hasn't necessarily been there. the revenue and the guide answer has not necessarily been anything to write home about, and they are sitting on their cash. michael, are they going to move that cash that these corporations are signature on and actually put it to work this year, do you think? maybe through dels. >> i think there's touch uncertainty right now. think about it, you're an cfo

out there, disaster in washington and you see the federal reserve essentially propping up the economy. does it really make sense to spend your cash reserves at this point? there was a comment made earlier about the federal reserve. you know, the reality is. i was talking to someone just a couple hours ago. what's going on in the federal reserve is unflatting the economy. how can you invest in that sort of sense is if the alen line would last. what else are you going to do? in a way you have to live with the fantasy while it's going on and make sure you're out before the whole thing pops. >> it's a good point, but in terms of the second half of the year would you expect a pickup in earnings the second half of year. >> i do expect a pickup in earnings. a stumbling recovery, three steps forward and two steps back. earnings numbers, as just said, about a "b," b-plus so i agree

with that acceleration. >> the reason -- >> the reason you are seeing comfort tip, that's the responsible thing for executives to do. >> 110 dollars and the compare sox get resner in the second half of the world and when you're lose inn, we know europe is going to be a problem, locker i think than the consensus expects. you and i have discussed before and china is weaker than consensus, but north america remains an important catholic. >> we'll leave it there. >> thanks, maria. >> coming up, ear expecting the numbers from erm life and gasoline priced drimg. kind out what impact it will

have on the economy and where in the world is phil he low? h.ein massachusetts. we'll find fill on the road. so haar so good. we're back in a moment. otherworldly things. but there are some things i've never seen before. this ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. which is good for business. because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air. suddenly, faraway places don't seem so...far away. ♪ tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and the streetsmart edge trading platform from charles schwab... tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 gives me tools that help me find opportunities more easily. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 i can even access it from the cloud and trade on any computer. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and with schwab mobile, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 i can focus on trading anyplace, anytime.

tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 until i choose to focus on something else. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 all this with no trade minimums. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and only $8.95 a trade. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 open an account with a $50,000 deposit, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and get 6 months commission-free trades. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 call 1-866-294-5411.

all right. this is a live shot of phil lebeau. test driving the tesla model s electric car from washington, d.c. en route to the boston area all day. we're going to hear from him in a moment, the moment he arrives in the boston area, which should be within the hour. we'll get a full report. he'll still on the road. the electric car looks good from what we can see so far. lill lebeau. who is driving an electric car, are anyway? after you hear these cass prices you might be. sharon epperson has more on the price of cars. >> sure may want to because $5 gasoline is here. we are seeing it at a station near downtown l.a. $5.19 a gallon at this chevron station right here los angeles, downtown l.a., and we're seeing prices at the pump climbing for 33 days straight over the past month while gasoline futures have gone up 11%.

prices at the pump are now at 3.75 a gallon. that's up 40 cents, 45 cents in the past month, up 15 cents in the past week. we are looking at prices that are continuing to climb and $4 averages are common but that's no common for those in california paying $5. >> how high will the price go? joining me now is an economic of ftn financial and our own steve liesman. steve, let me kick this off with you. in terms of the impact on the broader economy, can you characterize it for us as gas prices move higher. >> i don't know if it's the worst part of what the consumer is spending. it's certainly equal to what's happening with the payroll tax hike which is about 100 billion.

add that to the possible sequester which will take another 85 billion out. there's gdp, maria, and notice the line shows the top and bottom of the range of forecast and what we looked at. what it shows is some guys are at 3 and some are at 1.5. what's unusual about that be range in the first quarter is that we're in the quarter now. usually don't see that kind of variability, and the reason is people aren't sure about the question you just asked me, how much do gas prices impact and how much does the sequester impact, and how much does ultimately some of the other things that are out there impact consumer? >> lindsey, what about that? how do you see it? how important are energy prices to consumer. >> is there a point where people stop driving in. >> i'm not sure if there's a specific point but it will have a very dramatic impact on the consumer. the easiest way to derail the consumer is sustained high energy prices and during this period of minimal job creation

and lower incomes, consumers cannot absorb the price increase without cutting back elsewhere. if consumers are not out there spending and instead struggling to fill up the family car if gasoline does push to $4, $5, they will be spending 15% to 20% of their disposable income. that leaves very few dollars to spend on other goods and services so we'll see a very negative impact on overall growth. >> i'm questioning why gasoline prices are where they are. all year and for the last couple of years all i'm hearing about is shale. shale, shale and the opportunity for fracing in the united states, that this country is so rich in energy, and we could actually become an energy exporter by 2020. to what would you attribute the price of gasoline given all of that? >> i think, maria, there's a couple things going on. first of all, there's a lot of regulations. i believe there are 15 different blends right now have gasoline. i think what we're seeing right now is a temporary problem with

some of the blends that are being created, especially out there in california. the other thing is a lot of the shale play is in the natural gas play and the solution to that is to somehow create more natural gas, use natural gas to fuel more of our automobiles and vehicles around the country. that's -- that's the other thing. the other problem, of course, is that the delivery of this energy is still a ways off. >> do you agree, lindsey? >> i do. i was just going to point out what's so amazing right now the consumer still is spending. we saw the consumer spend through the fourth quarter into january, as expected, but the problem is when we talk about as expected growth, 0.1 is not synonymous with strength so it's clear that the consumer has lost momentum since the third quarter. that's the scary impact when we move into the second half of the year when the spring/summer driving season is important, the consumer is moving momentum. many of the transitory variables

may not be there mid-year. >> it may be that jobs are doing pretty well out there. that's what's has been happening with jobless claims. some of the issues, maria, that we've seen a lot. hard to get people to fill jobs, suggests maybe we might be near a point where wages start to go up a little more meaningfully than they have at any point during this expansion. >> i don't know if it's hard to get people to fill jobs or if jobs are hard to fill because of the skills mismatch. that's more of what we're seeing. having a lot of the high-skilled jobs. people are just unable to fill those. >> either way that works, lindsey, you should have at least some jobs, occupations should have better wage growth. the other part i was going to mention, the third element, housing, which has done a little better. if your house price is going up, you might be tempted to treatsome some of the energy shock as temporary and spend anywhere way. not all doom and gloom. challenges we're looking to see in the neck couple of weeks if

there's an offset to it. >> if we're at this price and we're not at the peak driving season what, happens in july and august? >> july and august it would come off. if i know my oil economics correctly, it would run up into the summer driving season and at or near the peak it starts to come off around there. maria, remember what lindsey said earlier, okay, it may go up to 15% of disposable income. right now gas and energy, the whole thing is worth about 10%. what you pay for your -- your natural gas, pay for electricity, it's about 10%. it's not single biggest bill that most people have even though in their brains it's the single biggest thing going on anywhere. >> remember, it's the second largest component in terms of retail sales. number one, of course, autos, so when we talk about consumption supporting the economy it's a very significant component. >> but have a little perspective, lindsey. electric utilities and commodities together right now are what, about 10% of the

consumer's bill. >> just about 11%. >> 11%. >> that's a lot. that's a lot. >> it's a lot, but it's not biggest peace. >> it's not the biggest, but, again, if we have no job growth and income growth it will be unsustainable. >> i agree with that. >> great conversation. we'll agree with that. apple and activist shareholder david einhorn duking it out in court. apple wants shareholders to vote on issuing preferred stock. kate kelly is live at the courthouse with the latest. hi, kate. >> reporter: hi, maria. potential victory for activist shareholders david einhorn though judge richard sullivan at the federal court behind me has not yet a final judgment. that could happen later today or tomorrow. said at the end of the 90 minutes, candidly he believes he may find in favor of greenlight capital on the mayors of that case but not clear whether or not he'll be able to find that there's irrevocable harm done to greenlight as a result what have happenle has done. just to remind what apple did

do, they bundled together several different proposals into one single proposal in their proxy. an annual meeting is taking place on february 27th in which they expect to hold a meeting at once. two einhorn supports and the other one he disagrees with strongly and is trying to get the entire proposal killed, at least in this voting cycle. >> all right, kate. thank you so much. kate kelly with the latest there. we'll be watching that. alan simpson and erskine bowles with another plan to help cut the debt in washington. more on that. stay with us. ity guided portfolio summary, you choose which accounts to track and use fidelity's analytics to spot trends, gain insights, and figure out what you want to do next. all in one place. i'm meredith stoddard and i helped create the fidelity guided portfolio summary.

it's one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. now get 200 free trades when you open an account. ♪ ♪ no two people have the same financial goals. pnc works with you to understand yours and help plan for your retirement. visit a branch or call now for your personal retirement review. executor of efficiency. you can spot an amateur from a mile away... while going shoeless and metal-free in seconds. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle...and go. you can even take a full-size or above, and still pay the mid-size price.

now this...will work. [ male announcer ] just like you, business pro. just like you. go national. go like a pro.

>> we're going to go the herbalife numbers. you know the story. two tight answer fighting over herbalife. but first john harwood on the debt threat. over to you. john. >> today was a day of public posturing for both the president of the united states, republicans as well as alan simpson and erskine bowles, the head of the presidential commission on deficit reduction. the president has been saying where are your cuts? and his public message was, yes, i'm ready to do more cuts. here's the president. >> i am willing to cut more spending that we don't need. get rid of programs that aren't

working. i've laid out specific reforms to our entitlement programs that can achieve the same amount of health care savings by the beginning of the next decade as the reforms that were proposed by the bipartisan simpson/bowles commission. >> of course, president barack obama is also saying we need new tax revenue as part of a followup dahle deal and today alan simpson and erskine bowles said they want even more cut than they had asked for before. while agreeing with the president on revenue, errse the former clinton white house chief of staff says he needs to push both sides. >> we're going to have to push the white house on health care. push the republicans on revenue. what we've tried to do is make enough cuts in health care to slow the rate of growth on a per capita basis to the rate of the growth in the economy. in our opinion that takes $600 billion to do over a ten-year period. >> reporter: maria, even if erskine bowles and alan simpson

are successful in that, it's not likely to be before march 1st. this is all happening in public. private negotiations are not going on it. may be, as erskine bowles and alan simpson suggested today, that we need a public backlash from the consequences of some of those sequester cuts before there's enough heat for washington to make a deal. >> deja vu again. these speeches sound more and more alike. thanks, john. mergers and acquisitions are heating up. what's the next biggie coming down the pipe? i'll speak about the nysi deal come up. >> and china's cyber attack. what america can do to ward them off and phil lebeau is test driving the tesla car. driving it from d.c. to boston. he'll charged up about it. he'll tell us about it after the break. to provide companies with services...

like helping hr departments manage benefits and pensions for over 11 million employees. reducing document costs by up to 30%... and processing $421 billion dollars in accounts payables each year. helping thousands of companies simplify how work gets done. how's that for an encore? with xerox, you're ready for real business. [ male announcer ] we began with the rx. ♪ then we turned the page, creating the rx hybrid. ♪ now we've turned the page again with the rx f sport. ♪ this is the next chapter for the rx and the next chapter for lexus. this is the pursuit of perfection. [ babies crying ] surprise -- your house was built on an ancient burial ground.

[ ghosts moaning ] surprise -- your car needs a new transmission. [ coyote howls ] how about no more surprises? now you can get all the online trading tools you need without any surprise fees. ♪ it's not rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade.

welcome back. apple wasn't the only company hacked. cnbc's julia boorstin joins us to take a look at the hacking wars affecting twitter today. >> >> reporter: it has been a day of hack attacks. they began this morning when jeep's account was taken over by a legitimate hacker and it continued this afternoon -- when it continued this afternoon when b.e.t. and the other company and mtv said they were hacked and they are both owned by viacom. what happened then is there was a lot of confusion on twitter and the company came out and said that it had indeed been a fake hack attack. they admitted that they had staged the entire thing. it was all a hooks. mtv then tweeted saying we totally catfished you guys. thanks for playing. so what happened then is that i spoke to twitter and they said

they don't comment on individual hack attacks but they do work directly with companies and with brands to make sure that they do everything they can to protect their passwords. the key thing is twitter can't do anything to distinguish if a hack is real or fake. back over to you. >> apple's was hacked. employee computers were compromised but no data was actually stolen. the revelation coming on the same day the "new york times" published this same in-depth story. exposing a chinese army unit behind many cyber attacks on many u.s. and corporate government systems so what's the impact the spying and theft is having on u.s. companies, and how do you say it? >> an ethical hacker joins us and with the security company immunity and mishel cohn is director of the united states emergency residency team and david is the media correspondent for npr and is following the

fallout of hackers infiltrating the media companies. thanks for joining us on this. dave, you describe yourself as an ethical hacker. what's that? >> similar to a legitimate hacker in that it's a hacker who uses their skills, and in this case, my entire company to help companies who are being attacked in other ways so, for example, a lot of financial companies in new york are our main clients, and when they are attacked, for example, by the chinese, we step in to help explain and understand it, and today has been a very busy day because a lot of companies like mine are looking to our clients and helping them understand. >> an ethical hacker. you're hacking nonetheless. how do we know that other people aren't calling themselves ethical hackers, and they are actually just infiltrating people's information. >> well, that's a really good point. the chinese that you're looking at here in this report are themselves hacking for their government. they are following their own ethical boundaries, as we are. it's just that ours are

essentially on your side. >> okay. and dave, what about that? take us inside how the chinese army hacking team is breaking into the systems here in the u.s. >> well, you're asking me, this david? >> david, yeah, go ahead. forgive me. what you saw if you looked at the report that talked about the hacking into the "new york times," for example, that occurred last fall but was only revealed a few weeks ago was that essentially a team of hackers would punch in at 8:00 in the morning and punch out at 5:00 at night and really direct their attention at the computer of reporter david barbosa, much awarded for his reporting on possible corruption on the elites and the chinese prem yerk the family of the premier there and gaining great access to not only his hard drive but those of 52 of his colleagues to try to figure out what the sources of his information were. they were able to put spybots and other elements into his hard drive through accessing his

e-mail, getting people to click on links that allowed and invited the software folks in. other folks can tell you more technically about this, but it showed that they can really get into anything they want to, even when the times brought in some fairly sophisticated reviewers of what occurred, this is state level hacking occurring and not just a misfit outtied doing it on behalf of the government. how is protecting these companies accomplished? >> one of the things we have to do today is to actually speak in that executive language so that we can justify the money that it takes to both make sure the life cycle management of our systems continues, to ensure that the health of our systems is good so that there aren't vulnerabilities and also to ensure that we have the

monitoring capability to detect this type of attack. i mean, even in the "new york times" -- >> i mean, do we have the capability? it just seems like these attacks are getting, you know, higher and higher in number. can you actually control this, or no? >> actually we really don't have the statistics to say that they are getting higher and higher. what we can say is we're detecting more and more of it. this has been going on since 1988 and before, and i think the numbers, the statistics aren't there to say that it's going up. the statistics are there to say we're finding it more. >> it seems to me the fact that knowing is growing as fast as data and data has increased in growth so much in the last years, one would assume that the hackers are right there with this growth in data. >> well, they are moving to where we are doing our which is and living our lives. the crime, the espionage that

used to be on the physical space is now on the internet so in that regard, yes, we're seeing more and more of it, but we're also seeing more and more of it because we're expanding in our i.t. capabilities, and at the same time we're not protecting those capabilities. you're seeing budget cuts across the board in all sectors in security, even with the increase in the attacks, the increase that we hear about every day. >> all right. we will leave it there. this is obviously a serious story. we're going to continue following it on this program. thanks very much for joining us. want to get to the results on herbalife. scott wapner with the numbers. >> finally numbers to go with all the noise around herbalife and the numbers are good. beat on the top and bottom line and full-year guidance ahead and that's why the stock looks way it does right there. a small gain but nonetheless in positive territory. herbalife announced its preliminary results on january 17th.

they said they would earned between $1.02 and $1.05 and earned at the top end of that range, and as you know this, this story as of late hasn't been about the numbers but the noise. the big billion dollar short put on here and carl icahn taking a 13% establishing, after the sell shares are undervalued. he's looking to meet with management and could include a so-called go private transaction and told us here exclusively on cnbc on friday that this was business, not personal, between him and mr. ackman and or the weekend i reported dan loeb had trimmed a bit of his stake in herbalife as well. shares up 16% since the beginning of the year and seem to be increasing here as we're speaking. a gain of 1.33%. a little drama has to hold until tomorrow because the conference

call for this company is not until tomorrow morning at 11:00 am reason. we'll see if the company addresses either. the drama will continue. we'll send it back to you. a heat on the top and the bottom. full-year guidance better than the street had been looking for as well. >> thank you very much. coming up, our panel of wall street's finest will be here with a look ahead at the market action and we less also talk about where the next blockbuster deals lie. we're back in a moment. stay with us. scalpel.

clamp. glitter. [ male announcer ] staples makes it easier to get everything your business needs. even custom banners. and now get 50% off banners and posters. staples. that was easy.

and now get 50% off banners and posters. today is gonna be an important day for us. you ready? we wanna be our brother's keeper. what's number two we wanna do? bring it up to 90 decatherms. how bout ya, joe? let's go ahead and bring it online. attention on site, attention on site. now starting unit nine. some of the world's cleanest gas turbines are now powering some of america's biggest cities. siemens. answers.

welcome back. office max and office depot in advanced talks to merge. kayla tausche with the latest. >> reporter: still no word on pricing for that deal between office depot and office max. because the deal has stopped it's been incredibly difficult for sources to pin down the exact exchange rate ratio for this teal. office max is up 21% and office depot up 21%. the company is eyeing thursday for an announcement and the company was pushed in december

to review its options including a sale in the stake of its mexico unit. that's said to be part of this deal. the consolidation has been announced and still it would be the latest point supporting the deal dam bursting. according to u.s. macizations activity is double what it was the same period last year and the second highest year-to-date total ever, second only to the year 2000. maria. >> thank you so much. kayla. not just retail. investors seeing a pickup in m & a action. warren buffett entered the ring with the buyout of heinz. peter weinberg joins us now. peter, nice to have you on the program. >> thank you, maria. your firm did the nyc ice deal, a number of other deals.

advisory business has been incredibly busy. what's behind the new string of deals. >> i think the whole street is busy. all of the m & a departments, here and in left-hand op, are burning the midnight oil. there's some of the old chestnuts we we've had for years frankly. lots of cash. good capital structures, low interest rates so all of that -- nothing has changed with respect to that. what has headached is the market's receptivity to deals. i think it's interesting that the berkshire hathaway stock went up. the comcast stock went up upon their announcement, and if you look at the ice stock since the announcement to purchase the new york stock exchange, it's up over 20%. that's new. that's different. >> you're seeing a different market reception to some of these deals. what does that tell you?

>> we always talk about the confidence and show and boards. really the everyone uis confidence of investors. there were a number of deals last year that that was not the case. >> the sentiment has changed. you're seeing sentiments change with these markets, right? markets have been raiding up. when do you think the changes occurred? >> i think the continued strength in the important has been an important thing and that really occurred in december. i think the new york stock exchange i.c.e. deal was a bellwether. these things take time. nonetheless, we felt sentiment changed the end of last year.

>> it's interesting because the nyc i.c.e. deal i thought would trigger other exchanges to do something given the fact that i.c.e. gets stronger with the derivatives business. do you expect more consolidation or it's not big enough to see the flow we'd see in a couple of year. >> we feel that the activity is going to be in the industries where we feel there's the most challenge going forward, energy, health care and last week there well really deals in those areas, but we think that's active going forward. >> in financial services, a lot of talk about real structural change and we talked about that in davos about how the major investors were able to split, and is that the kind of change you're talking about, or are you talking about increased regulation? >> both. >> i think both, yeah.

i think the -- i hope the banks don't slip up. i don't think that would be a good thing for overall risk or a good thing for the economy but the financial services industry is huge. it includes insurance and includes payments and it includes trust services and transaction services. it includes banking itself so it's a very, very large industry. it's always comprised of relatively a large piece of the m & a market. >> you think financial services will be active. >> i do. >> where in act care will it be act sniff. >> we see it all over. so many different components to health care, but we see in particular some of the large pharmaceutical companies being interested perhaps in pipelines that they don't have on their own. that factor has been around for some time. again, investor receptivity might affect the pace of that going forward. >> is this a positive for the markets, where you see lots of deal flow? >> i think it reflects an overall positive sentiment in the market. i don't think it's as much that

m & a creates a positive market, i think it's vice versa. >> let me bring in shareholder activism, guys like bill ackman and carl icahn fighting over herbalife and the dell company, you know, going private. what does this tell us about what's going on in the market? >> well, the activist space -- if you're an investor the activist space is a good place to put your money and there's money pouring into that space and they have frankly done well relative to other asset categories so as long as that keeps happening, money flowing into the activist space. it's not carl abdul qadeer khan and bill ackman, lots of other firms out there are attracting assets. as long as that's the case, you think the idea is that they will push management to do things to increase shareholder value. >> they always will, and typically the activists are not crazy. if you take any of the positions that the activists -- putting herbalife aside. if you take any position that an activist will take on, they are

usually not crazy, but, on the other hand, they often don't know what's going on in a company to be as resolute as they appear to be. >> what's your take on the pricing here, heinz and dell? we talked earlier. you said maybe they look cheap. >> well, when you look at those transactions in particular on a multipass basis, there's a very large discrepancy because they are totally different businesses. i think dell is in a five timesish cash flow and i think heinz is in a 13ish cash flow multiple of 2011, but if you look at the premium to the unaffected marketplace those are in 20%, plus 25%, in that range. that's typically associateded with a huge premium. that's what happens. we're in this transition. we're going from crisis to a better market, and this is sort of typical what happens in those periods if you look back over

time. >> as an advisor would you advise people to use their stock right now as currency or take advantage of these low interest rates? >> well, i mean, typically, you know, debt is cheaper capital than equity, so i think, you know, that's always our inclination but it's a case by case, and we don't recommend ever that companies lever up beyond their capability to do so. >> do you think dell happens? there's been debate about the dell deal. >> i don't know. this is what a marketplace is. i mean, southeastern has raised their hands and said we'd like you to do something different. the stock is trading 15 cents over its offer price and so that doesn't look like an awful lot is going to happen but you never know. >> all right. getting ready for a big year of deals. peter, good to have you on the program. >> thank you. >> peter weinberg, co-founder and head of corporate advisory. we'll check in withhe's been te driving the tesla model s electric car. stay with us. ep my eye on her... but, i didn't always watch out for myself. with so much noise about health care...

i tuned it all out. with unitedhealthcare, i get information that matters... my individual health profile. not random statistics. they even reward me for addressing my health risks. so i'm doing fine... but she's still going to give me a heart attack. we're more than 78,000 people looking out for more than 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. with fidelity's new options platform, we've completely integrated every step of the process,

making it easier to try filters and strategies... to get a list of equity options... evaluate them with our p&l calculator... and execute faster with our more intuitive trade ticket. i'm greg stevens and i helped create fidelity's options platform. it's one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. now get 200 free trades when you open an account.

welcome back. phil lebeau is enduring the usual driving hassles like traffic and tolls but he's managed to avoid the high gasoline prices. that's because he is test driving the tesla model s electric car. phil, how is the ride?

>> maria, we are just pulling into our destination in massachusetts. it's a tesla store just outside of boston. this has been a 445-mile journey, began early this morning on "squawk box" at the store in washington. we recharged once in delaware. recharged once in connecticut and now we are pulling in here. what stands out, maria? this is a car that you can drive over long distances, but you've got to manage where you're driving, how long you're driving, in order to match what the expectation is in terms of battery power. we made it. we've got more on the web, cnbc.com. it's been a fun drive. maria? >> all right, phil, thank you so much. we'll keep watching. phil lebeau. my thoughts on cyber security up next. stay next for the observation, it's next. [ male announcer ] any technology not moving forward

is moving backward. [ engine turns over, tires squeal ] and you'll find advanced safety technology like an available heads-up display on the 2013 lexus gs. there's no going back. stop! stop! stop! come back here! humans -- we are beautifully imperfect creatures living in an imperfect world. that's why liberty mutual insurance has your back with great ideas like our optional better car replacement. if your car is totaled, we give you the money to buy one a model year newer. call... and ask one of our insurance experts about it today. hello?! we believe our customers do their best

out there in the world, and we do everything we can to be there for them when they need us. [car alarm blaring] call now and also ask about our 24/7 support and service. call... and lock in your rate for 12 months today. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? omnipotent of opportunity. you know how to mix business... with business. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle. and go. you can even take a full-size or above. and still pay the mid-size price. i could get used to this. [ male announcer ] yes, you could business pro. yes, you could. go national. go like a

welcome back. finally today, my observation on the latest cyber hacking attempts and what they say about the state of our technology and our diminishing privacy. the issue is becoming front and center on the agenda of the highest levels of the u.s. government and has become a big vulnerability as we become more dependent on technology. a source told me recently that he has been doing a lot of

business in the philippines and noticed a few years ago that the chinese built a grid there in the philippines. some believe that was a big mistake because now the chinese have access to all the information and data coming through the philippines, including the defense buildup that the u.s. had initiated in that country, a development that was supposed to be confidential. there are other similar stories. sources in washington have told me many times when the u.s. government officials go to china and russia, they're not allowed to take their mobile device. why? because as soon as the plane enters chinese or russian air space, both countries have access to the u.s. data. all the data on those blackberry phones. and it doesn't end there. we hear about a bigger threat from those within the u.s. borders who are looking to steal data and people's bank accounts. the bottom line is, nothing is growing as fast as data. we have traditional data and big data. everything from our cars to our appliances, considered big data. data storage companies today are clamoring for market share, as firms now are